Through the Dark, Singing
by burnmedown
Summary: Sonny glances back over his shoulder, and everything - the biting cold, the howl of the wind, the weather-beaten wood beneath his hands - seems to fade into the distance. All he can see is the pool of blood, standing out vivid crimson against the thin coating of snow on the floor. Clay coughs, spits out another mouthful of blood, and whispers, "I think something's wrong with me."
1. Chapter 1

Sonny has to admit that being sent across the Russian border on a mission does have its downside, what with the whole "no ISR or comms or QRF, and if you get caught you might die and also start World War III" thing.

On the other hand, getting to spend some time in the beautiful, chilly Altai Mountains makes for a nice break from all the goddamn jungles they've been trudging through lately.

Bravo's most recent mission, completed just under a week before, was especially miserable. Despite dousing themselves in insect repellent, the entire team damn near got carried off by mosquitoes and biting flies. Sonny managed to stumble into some kind of plant that gave him an ugly rash that is only just now starting to fade. Ray got bitten by a spider. Clay fell into mud and then spent a good three days complaining that he couldn't get it all out of his lovely golden locks.

A little bit of snow sounds downright heavenly by comparison, and danger aside, Sonny can tell he isn't the only one who thinks so.

As far as objectives go, the mission is relatively simple. A small U.S. drone malfunctioned and went down a few miles inside the Russian border, where it should never have been in the first place. The members of Bravo all know better than to bother asking why it _was_ there; it's quite possible that even Mandy herself doesn't actually know.

Regardless of how it came to be in Russia, the drone now needs to be retrieved, preferably before the Russian government figures out that it's there. Currently, the area seems clear so far as Mandy and her people can tell, though reliable real-time data is hard to come by for obvious reasons.

Bravo will be starting out in Mongolia, then hiking across the border to retrieve the drone. Stealth is imperative; even while still on the Mongolian side of the line, they need to avoid drawing any kind of attention on their way in. That means they'll approach the border area in nondescript trucks, ditch those in the woods, and go on foot from there, remaining under the cover of the trees as much as possible.

Sonny starts the mission in good spirits. Unfortunately, something starts to drag his mood down before their plane even touches down in Mongolia. That 'something' is blond and blue-eyed and currently acting mopier than a kicked hound dog.

_Something_ is bothering Spenser. Sonny just can't figure out what the hell it is.

Is Clay and Stella's on-again, off-again relationship newly set to 'off'? Has Clay's dad given up on his 'decent human being' act and pivoted back to being a great big walking asshole? Did Clay's mom call with a sob story about needing money, then get pissed at him when he offered to pay for her to go to rehab?

Before Sonny can decide whether he should try to figure out what's wrong (and if so, how), Ray beats him to it.

Bravo Two casually eases over to sit next to Spenser. He lets silence hang between them for a moment, then asks in that soft, even tone he has perfected, "Everything all right, brother?"

Clay narrows his eyes. "I am _fine,"_ he says, more than a little snappishly, and then he leans back and crosses his arms across his chest.

Ray blinks a couple times. "...So I see," he replies mildly, and gets up to go sit with Jason.

Yeah. If Spenser is biting Ray's head off for no good reason, then something is very, very off with him.

After they're on the ground in Mongolia, Sonny can't resist making his own attempt to tease out what's wrong; predictably, he gets shut down just as hard as Ray did. Jason ends up broaching the subject while they're gearing up, and while Clay manages to rein in the annoyance a little with his team leader, he is still very emphatic about stating that he is _absolutely fine,_ and _why does everybody keep asking me that?_

As soon as their youngest looks down to buckle on his gear, his teammates exchange a volley of meaningful glances over his head. After a few seconds of silent communication, there's a sort of unanimous shrug. Of course they aren't dumb enough to actually _believe_ him, but Spenser has long since proven his ability to keep his head in the game, to operate effectively even when things back home aren't ideal - so while this is a bit concerning, they mutually agree to let it go at least until after the mission is done.

(Later, when he can't get the bleeding to stop, Sonny will want to reach back through time and throttle every last one of them, including himself, for being so goddamn stupid.)

On the drive, Sonny stares out the window, taking in the scenery. The woods are made up mostly of conifers, dotted here and there with deciduous trees bearing sparse golden leaves intermixed with bare branches. As the road winds upward into the higher mountains, patches of snow become more and more frequent.

Despite the beautiful landscape stretching away into the distance, Sonny's gaze keeps landing back on the kid who is huddled in a corner like a petulant toddler, resolutely not looking out the window.

Something about this keeps gnawing persistently at the back of Sonny's brain. It isn't until after they've left the trucks and headed off into the deep, shadowed, icy woods that he finally places exactly what it is.

Clay squints when he's in pain.

This is something Sonny figured out early on, back when the kid was a rookie whose mere existence he found barely tolerable. Back when Sonny would have laughed in the face of anyone who told him he'd end up becoming best friends with the cocky little shit.

If Clay is hurting and thinks he's alone or not being watched, he'll squeeze his eyes tightly shut. If he's trying to hide it, he'll just squint a little, and the lines around his eyes will grow deeper. Which is what's happening right now.

Son of a bitch.

Spenser is trudging along quietly, keeping up with the rest of the team but making no attempt to join in on the conversation. Sonny marches over to him, leans his head in close, and asks in a harsh whisper, "What's goin' on with you?"

When Clay makes that lemon-sucking face again and starts to open his mouth, Sonny snarls quietly, "Do _not_ give me that crap again. What. Is. It?"

Spenser's shoulders droop. He sighs. For a second, the only sound is the crunching of iced-over snow and frozen grass beneath their feet. Then Clay admits quietly, "Kinda got a headache."

Sonny squints at him suspiciously. Spenser isn't prone to headaches, and while he's maybe had a few before, Sonny has never seen one make him act this… _off._ He can't be hungover, can he? He didn't seem to have been drinking when he showed up to the briefing, and usually not even Clay is stupid enough to get plastered right before a mission.

"It's not that bad," Spenser adds quickly. "Just a dull throb, no other symptoms. I can push through it. If I couldn't, I would have told Trent or Jason. It's just… making me cranky."

After a minute, Sonny huffs an almost-laugh, and some of the tension eases from his neck. "We noticed."

Spenser smiles a bit ruefully. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

With most of his worry assuaged, Sonny is free to enjoy the taste of crisp mountain air and the whisper of wind through branches overhead. As the team nears the Russian border, all conversation dies off, and they move in silence.

There's a tense moment near the Mongolia-Russia line when they round a bend and come upon a cabin Mandy didn't warn them about, but a closer glance shows that it's obviously abandoned; the wood is weathered, several windows are broken, and the door hangs half off its hinges.

Maybe half an hour after they cross the border, Spenser starts noticeably flagging, struggling to keep up with the group.

That concern Sonny thought he'd gotten rid of? Yeah, it comes rushing back stronger than ever.

He isn't the only one to notice, of course. Jason quietly halts them with a hand signal, and Trent immediately materializes at Clay's side, hand on his arm. Now that they've stopped moving, Spenser is swaying slightly like he might fall. Sonny helps Trent ease him down to sit in a patch of bare grass.

Clay's eyes are glazed, there are red blotches over his cheekbones, and sweat stands out on his face. Trent touches his forehead and swears softly. Sliding his hand down to take Clay's pulse, he says in a whisper, "You're running a fever. Any other symptoms?"

Clay leans his weight against Sonny without seeming to realize he's doing so. "Dull headache," he replies, barely moving his lips. "Tired. Legs started aching pretty bad around the time we reached the border. Kinda feel like I might…"

He trails off, and then clarifies the rest of that sentence by leaning away from Sonny and throwing up.

Trent leans back on his heels, looks up at Jason, and shakes his head a little. Hayes turns away, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Aborting the mission now could prove disastrous. They've got absolutely no way to contact HAVOC without hiking all the way back to the trucks, then driving far enough from the border to safely use comms again. By the time Mandy managed to get another team here, their window for successfully recovering the drone would almost certainly have passed.

That said, it's pretty obvious that Spenser isn't going to be able to continue, probably not even if they dose him up on painkillers and fever reducers. He can't even keep up in this condition, let alone operate.

A second round of heaving closely follows the first, and Clay pukes until he's bringing up nothing but bile. Sweaty and obviously miserable, he spits, wipes his mouth, and looks up at his team leader. "Jace, I didn't know," he says in a cracked whisper. "Swear to God. Thought I was fine."

In full mission mode, all business, Bravo One ignores him. "Trent?"

The medic sighs. "Flu, maybe. Impossible to know without getting him to a doctor. But he's not finishing the mission."

Clay gives them all his very best wounded, kicked-puppy look, which is pretty effective at the moment. "Y'all go on," he tells them, pushing away from Sonny, trying to get to his feet. "I'll head back to the trucks. Wait for y'all there."

He makes it halfway up before his legs start to buckle. Sonny catches him.

Whatever this is - the flu from hell, or plague, or Ebola - it's taking Spenser down terrifyingly quickly. He seemed mostly fine barely over an hour ago, and now he can hardly stand.

When Clay leans over to dry heave some more, the rest of Bravo shares another of those meaningful group glances.

The mission is important. They need to get their asses in gear and get it done. They are all very aware of that.

They also know there's no way in hell they're sending Clay back across the border alone, through this terrain, in the cold, when he's too sick to even walk by himself.

"I'll go with him," Sonny hears himself say.

Jason's eyebrows just about jump off his forehead. Sonny can understand why, because he's been on Bravo for a long time now, and his teammates know that he's the last guy to willingly remove himself from the action.

Or at least he _was._ Right up until Bravo drafted a cocky, annoying rookie who ended up getting under Sonny's skin before he even realized what was happening.

Now, he feels almost desperate to get Jason to agree. "Y'all can pull this one off with four," he says. "I'll get Spenser back to the trucks."

"I'm fine," Clay mumbles.

Sonny pats his shoulder and kindly tells him, "Shut up."

Jason blows out a breath that hangs in the air like smoke. Reluctantly, he nods.

When they part ways, Sonny is torn. Part of him desperately wants to go with his brothers toward the danger, not away from it. He forces himself to look ahead rather than back; to focus on the task of getting the kid back to safety as fast as possible.

Turns out, that ain't as easy as it might sound.

They stagger along for a while, Sonny taking most of Clay's weight. Spenser's fever keeps rising until Sonny can feel the heat radiating through all their layers of clothing. Periodically, they have to stop so Clay can heave, even though his stomach is long since empty.

They're probably nearing the Mongolia-Russia line when it starts to snow.

The wind picks up, rattling bare branches, the chill of it burning Sonny's eyes. The sky darkens to a slate gray. The snowflakes that come down are small and hard and icy, the kind that bite into exposed skin.

Clay, who has been stubbornly stumbling forward with his head down, starts to shiver hard. Clasping his arms around his chest, he closes frost-crusted lashes and whispers, "Cold."

"I know," Sonny responds, tightening his arm around the kid's shoulders, not bothering to tell him that being cold is definitely not his actual problem at the moment.

By the time they reach the abandoned cabin, the wind is absolutely howling, and the snow is coming down so hard Sonny can barely tell where he's going. The sight of the cabin is a relief, because it confirms that at least they haven't strayed off the trail. Yet.

Clay staggers forward one more step, and then, despite Sonny's best efforts, he folds slowly to the ground.

Sonny looks at the cabin, nearly hidden by the swirling snow. He sighs. "Come on, kid. Up."

Inside is only marginally warmer, but at least the wind is no longer cutting through them and they're mostly out of the snow. Sonny sets about trying to take off Clay's outer coat. The cold has long since lost its novelty, and he's now regretting ever having complained about the jungle heat - but if there's one good thing about the frigid weather, it's that it might help bring down Spenser's blazing fever.

Semiconscious, Clay tries to mumble a protest, but eventually gives up and just closes his eyes. Sonny eases him down next to one of the broken windows, then sets about trying to prop the broken door so that it will at least mostly block the wind.

When he hears Spenser start heaving again, Sonny doesn't think much of it. Not until the gagging stops and Clay whispers, "Sonny. Sonny, I think…"

Sonny glances back over his shoulder, and everything - the cold, the howl of the wind, the weatherbeaten wood beneath his hands - seems to fade into the distance.

All he can see is the pool of blood, standing out vivid crimson against the thin coating of snow on the floor.

Clay coughs, spits out another mouthful of blood, and whispers, "I think something's wrong with me."

Sonny's heart sounds like a drum beating in his ears. Abandoning the door, he goes to sit next to his teammate, carefully shifting the kid over to rest on his shoulder, wincing at the shocking heat of Clay's skin.

"You're okay," Sonny says, calm and reassuring, patting Spenser's back like he's a child, like he's Mikey or Jameelah or RJ. "You're gonna be just fine."

All he can think is, _Please._

_Please let him be okay._

_Trent, please hurry._


	2. Chapter 2

Honestly, it's almost a relief when Ray figures out that Spenser is being so cranky and mopey because he's sick. That's simpler, and likely much easier to deal with, than some of the potential alternatives.

See, there's this thing Clay does that makes Ray want to throttle him.

(Really, there are _several_ things Spenser does that make Ray want to throttle him, but this one specific thing is particularly common.)

When Clay has gotten all jammed up inside his own head, or is struggling with something, or is feeling sorry for himself - which happens surprisingly often, because Spenser is actually kind of a drama queen - he tends to go quiet. Monosyllabic, for all that he can be a mouthy little shit the rest of the time.

And when one of his teammates figures out what's going on with him and talks to him about it, gives him some heartfelt, carefully thought out speech, he does two things: he listens, while wearing the sardonic little smirk that seems to be his default expression, and then he says something along the lines of 'Mm-hmm' or 'Okay.' Every once in a while he'll throw in an 'Uh-huh' just for variety and to express his heartfelt gratitude.

And then that's it. He goes back to wallowing inside his own head.

Ray would have long since given up on the speeches entirely if not for the fact that he finally figured out the kid _does_ hear him. It might be days later or even weeks later when it suddenly becomes clear that Spenser not only heard what he said, but took it to heart and has been thinking about it ever since. The kid just can't generally bring himself to acknowledge it in the moment, for whatever reason. It has to bounce around inside that damn stubborn blond head for an undetermined period of time before finally re-emerging as something approaching common sense or emotional maturity.

A cold, or the flu or whatever this is, is a hell of a lot easier to deal with than having to go through that entire song and dance. They just need to take him home, get him some rest and fluids and NyQuil, and he'll be fine. Back to his old self.

Until then, Sonny will take care of him, make sure he gets back safely, so Ray puts the whole thing out of his mind and focuses on the job ahead.

The drone they've been tasked with retrieving, preferably without leaving any sign that it was ever there, is thankfully not one of the big ones that would require a vehicle to transport. It's larger than the one Davis showed them in Afghanistan, but not by much, which means any one of them should be capable of carrying it out.

During the long flight over to Mongolia, Trent and Brock made some sort of bet, with the condition that the loser would have drone-hauling duty. Brock apparently lost, meaning he gets to be the pack mule. He handled that outcome with characteristic patience and good humor.

The scenery here is gorgeous, the weather sharply cold. Every footstep cracks through frosted foliage; every exhale leaves mist hanging in the air. If not for all the danger and intrigue, it's the sort of place Ray would love to show Naima. For all that his wife is stronger than steel and eminently practical, she also has a soul-deep love of beauty that she doesn't get to indulge nearly often enough.

In the end, they find the drone just fine; it's exactly where Mandy predicted it would be. It isn't until after they've secured it and started to head back that the problem arises.

The Russian government might not know exactly what went down within their airspace, but they're apparently aware that _something_ did_._ Bravo is no longer alone in the mountains.

On the bright side, at least they don't appear to be dealing with Spetsnaz. These guys look and act like typical soldiers, not elite operators. The downside, however, is that there are a _lot_ of them. When they show up, they do so in numbers, and engaging them simply can't happen. Sonny was right: in this particular scenario, there really isn't that much difference between having a team of six and having a team of four.

Fighting isn't an option for multiple reasons, so all that is left to do is disappear.

With their path back to the border blocked for the time being, they find a place to hole up. Ray goes up a huge conifer tree, his movements hidden by a near-solid wall of branches and needles, to keep an eye on the soldiers' movements. The last thing they want to do is move deeper into Russian territory, but if it's the only way to avoid discovery, they'll do it as a last resort.

Because of his vantage point, Ray ends up being the first one to see the storm coming in.

It happens fast. The early part of the day was chilly but bright and calm, with a bluebird sky. Once the clouds sweep in, the temperature rapidly drops and the wind starts to pick up. By the time Ray makes it back down to the ground, tiny, glittering, windblown snowflakes have started to fall.

After that, it doesn't take long for the flurry to become an onslaught, causing visibility to pretty much disappear. Huddled beneath a copse of conifers that provide some shelter against the the snow and wind, Bravo confers and tries to figure out exactly what the hell they're going to do.

The upside of the sudden snowstorm is that it should make it a lot easier to move around without being seen or heard. None of the Russian soldiers will have a clue as to Bravo's presence unless the operators pretty much walk right into them.

On the other hand, the same limitations now apply to Bravo, and it's a hell of a lot easier to evade unfriendlies when you have at least some idea where they are.

They consider hunkering down, just sheltering in place and waiting for the storm to pass, but Ray can tell none of the others like that idea any more than he does. The presence of this many soldiers indicates that the Russians are taking this seriously. Wait too long, and any currently existing holes in the gauntlet are likely to close.

For a couple minutes the conversation goes in circles, with the participants speaking in a sort of hushed yell that can be heard over the wind but hopefully won't carry outside their circle. Finally, Ray offers a possible solution.

From the time he spent observing the soldiers from OP, he's pretty sure they're searching this area in a grid pattern. That means their future movements should be predictable - and he believes he can use that to navigate back to the border without coming in contact.

It's a hell of a risk, with a lot more unknowns than anyone should feel comfortable with. Ray knows this when he says it; he's sure Jason also knows when he hears it. Still, staying put is an incredible risk all its own, one that could end with them completely boxed in and unable to fight or escape either one.

Jason thinks it through for a minute, and then he nods, claps Ray on the shoulder, and whisper-shouts, "Take us home, Bravo Two."

Ray draws a deep breath that numbs his lungs. As 2IC of a Tier One team, he has long since grown accustomed to taking initiative, accepting responsibility, assuming risk. He's not afraid of it, can't afford to be, but this... Lord, there are a lot of ways this one could go wrong.

If Ray's memory is a tiny bit faulty, or his predictions are just a little off...

If the soldiers deviate from their pattern because of new orders or just because of the storm...

If more men have already arrived to supplement the search patterns he observed...

Well, there's only one way to find out.

With visibility still almost nonexistent, Ray has to navigate using nothing but his compass and mental map of the area. To operators accustomed to having eyes in the sky on nearly every mission, it feels a bit like an abrupt return to the stone age.

They adjust, because that's what they do.

Their winding path back to the border takes them far from the way they came in, but that's irrelevant. All that matters is that they make it safely back into Mongolia, find the trucks, reunite with Sonny and Clay, and get the hell out of here with the drone.

The swirling snow forces them to move more slowly than they'd like, to step carefully, feel their way across spines of stone and between the branches of conifer trees. A couple times they have to backtrack a bit to find better paths up and over a ridgeline.

Despite being geared up for the climate, they inevitably start to feel the cold. By the time Ray judges that they're nearing the Russia-Mongolia line, his fingers and toes have moved past burning to numbness, and his nose hairs and eyelashes are frozen. The snow has slowed, receding to a few scattered flurries, but is leaving even more intense cold in its wake.

By the time they finally crest a ridge and head down the last slope to where they left the trucks concealed in a deep grove of snow-dusted larch, the light is waning and there's a brittle snap to the air, as though the world is made of glass and might shatter with a wrong move.

They're all so acclimated to operating under extreme stress that sometimes they barely even notice it except in its sudden absence. As soon as Ray sees the trucks, he feels like he's received a low dose of muscle relaxer; the tension just starts to drain out of his neck and shoulders. Behind him, he hears Brock, who has hauled the drone all this way through harsh conditions without a single word of complaint, give a faint sigh of relief.

Seeing the finish line so close lends them energy, and they speed up down that final slope. Ray starts planning the bedtime story he's going to tell his babies when he gets back. Right now, he's chilled and achy and wants nothing more than to sit in front of a heater for a while, and then go home to his family.

It's Jason who figures out they've got a problem.

Ray is helping Brock load the drone into the back of the truck when he hears a door open and close, then another. Then Jason calls sharply, "Sonny? Clay?"

When his voice dies away, it is answered only by ringing evening silence.

The cold crawls inside Ray, burrowing into his chest. There's an internal jolt as the situation shifts from what he thought it was into something completely different.

This was supposed to have been over. They were supposed to be safe, together, ready to go home.

For a moment, nobody says anything, trying to wrap their heads around what this could mean. Then Brock tentatively ventures, "Maybe they stopped somewhere to wait out the storm?"

It's the simplest explanation, and the one Ray desperately needs to be true. They likely just lost some time because Sonny didn't feel like dragging a feverish kid through the snow. Now that things have calmed down, they're probably well on their way and will be here soon.

Bravo waits, and the last dregs of light drain out of the sky, and the only sound is the wind.

They discuss turning comms back on, trying to contact HAVOC from here, maybe even seeing if they can get through to their teammates. On the way in, they didn't dare use radios too close to the border because it might draw the wrong kind of attention. Now that they're on the Mongolian side and have no intention of crossing the border again, might it be worth the risk?

As a team, they talk through the pros and cons, and keep coming back to one simple fact: right now, there's no way of knowing if Sonny and Clay ever made it to this side of the line. They can't risk alerting unfriendlies to their presence here when it's possible that two of their guys are still in Russian territory.

Just before full dark, when the just-risen moon has started to set the snow glowing faintly in the shadowy gloom, Trent suddenly remembers the cabin they saw on the way in.

It's on the Mongolian side, or at least they're pretty sure it is. If their guys were going to take shelter, that seems like the most logical place for them to do so.

After that, there's little need for further discussion. They leave the drone in the truck; the only really meaningful thing about it was that it was in Russia and shouldn't have been, and now that it no longer is, there's not much about it worth protecting.

As it turns out, they smell the woodsmoke, faint but distinct, before they even reach the cabin.

Not wanting to die by friendly fire, Jason calls out quietly. Almost immediately, the propped-up front door gets shoved aside with a clatter, and Sonny comes barreling out to meet them. In the eerie half-light of the moon glinting off snow, he looks pale, eyes hollow and scared.

All but ignoring the others, he makes a beeline straight for Trent, latching on to the medic's arm. Voice shaking with cold or fear or both, the Texan says, "You got to help him. Please. I… I was scared to move him. He won't quit bleeding."

_Bleeding?_

This can't be happening.

Clay was sick, that was all. He had a virus. He was gonna be fine.

Seeing his own shock and confusion reflected on his teammates' faces, Ray follows Sonny and Trent inside the cabin, which is dimly illuminated by the flicker of flames in a half-crumbled fireplace in the corner.

Spenser is lying utterly still on his side, eyes closed, lips bluish. There's strange pinprick purple bruising visible beneath the skin of his neck, his wrists, but Ray doesn't notice that right away. He's a little too focused on the thin, constant stream of blood trickling from Clay's nose and the corner of his mouth.

Judging by the small crimson pool around his head, it's been going on for a while.

Trent is talking, clipped and urgent, asking Sonny to relate exactly what happened, searching for anything about this that might make sense.

Sonny says, _He just started bleeding for no reason. I didn't know how to stop it._

Sonny says, _I was worried about the fever, but now it's gone and he's so damn cold._

Trent fumbles for a pulse. There's a moment where he can't find it and his face goes very still, and Ray feels the bottom drop out of the world, but then Trent exhales and leans forward a little with relief, and Ray remembers how to breathe again.

"Sitrep?" Jason asks shortly, his eyes fixed on Clay's motionless form, on the bruising and all the blood.

Trent replies, "Whatever he's got, it's hemorrhagic. Probably causing thrombocytopenia. His BP is low and his pulse is weak. I can give him fluids and all the blood I have, but it's a stopgap at best. He needs to be in a hospital." He pauses and then adds more quietly, "He needed to be in a hospital hours ago."

"Can we move him?"

The medic hesitates before answering. "You mean without killing him?" He shakes his head. "I don't know. But we're gonna have to try."

Ray feels like he's stuck in a nightmare, and all he wants to do is wake up.

Less than eight hours ago Spenser was cranky and had a headache, and now he's bleeding from everywhere and probably dying, and there's no way to get him to help without making it worse.

Trent starts barking orders, and Ray shakes himself out of the shock and gets moving.

If there's a way to save their brother, they'll find it.

They have to.


	3. Chapter 3

After Spenser starts puking blood, things go downhill pretty fast.

Sonny talks to him, rambling, only half aware of what he's even saying. Just mindlessly trying to use his voice to somehow make things better, because it's not like he has a lot of other resources at his disposal at the moment. The basic medical supplies he's carrying? They ain't likely to touch whatever the hell this is. Sonny is guessing even Trent would probably be pretty thrown off by their teammate suddenly, spontaneously, inexplicably transforming into a blood fountain - but the medic would at least have a better chance of knowing what to do about it.

God, what Sonny wouldn't give to have Bravo Four here right now.

That feeling only intensifies once Spenser's pain truly sets in.

Sonny isn't sure whether the agony has intensified or was always there and Clay is just having a harder time hiding it now, but whatever the case, the kid ends up curled in on himself, arms wrapped around his belly. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut; breaks out in a sweat despite the cold; starts making a low, cracked humming noise deep in his throat after each round of puking.

After one such event, Clay manages to get his hand up and latch on to the arm Sonny has loosely curled around the kid to hold him up.

Fighting for breath, Spenser rasps in a wrecked voice, "Sonny. Hurts."

Sonny's eyes burn. "I know, Clay. I know it does. I'm sorry."

Jesus, he is. It cuts him to the bone, watching his best friend suffer like this. He's got morphine but is too scared to give Clay any, afraid it will hasten his downward spiral toward a possible destination Sonny can't even let himself think too much about.

Spenser's head falls forward, and his eyes slide closed again. "Gut," he whispers, his voice so faint that Sonny has to lean in close to hear it over the wind outside. "Like... knives."

In the dim light, Clay looks terrifyingly gray. His skin feels less hot, though Sonny doesn't know if that's just because of the chilly environment. Regardless, he desperately hopes it's a good sign.

For a long time the pain doesn't seem to let up much, but the heaving gradually slows, along with the storm outside. Huddled against the cold, Sonny tries to breathe feeling back into his fingertips, and he starts thinking about getting moving again. They need to get to the trucks. Need to be there when the others arrive so that they can drive Clay out to civilization, to help.

Spenser is semiconscious, eyes glazed and half-open, head lolling against Sonny's shoulder. He seems a little less tense than before, a bit less tightly curled up, which Sonny hopes means that the pain is ebbing along with the fever.

He learns the hard way that that's not it at all.

Clay isn't hurting less. He's just fading out. Losing strength and awareness.

Sonny figures that out pretty quickly once he judges that the storm has calmed enough for them to get moving, and he makes the terrible mistake of trying to get Spenser back on his feet.

"Come on, kid," he coaxes, holding Clay's wrists, gently trying to lift. "Our boys are waitin' for us. We need to get going. Can you move?"

Spenser blinks listlessly. With obvious effort, he manages to get his eyes back open and direct his gaze to Sonny's face. Pressing trembling lips together, he swallows, winces at what is probably a very unpleasant flavor of blood mixed with bile, and then bravely nods.

Clay makes it barely halfway to his feet before he _screams_ and folds forward, grabbing at his belly.

Sonny scrambles, frantic, trying to keep Spenser from falling, to find a way to stop making it worse. Clay's hoarse yell of agony suddenly turns into gagging, and he leans forward and vomits blood with such force that it comes out his nose too.

Hands shaking, Sonny lowers the kid back down carefully, letting him curl on his side. Spenser's gagging finally stops, and he manages to weakly spit. Then he just breathes; ragged, heaving breaths that sound like sobs.

Sonny's hand hovers over Clay's shoulder. He wants desperately to offer comfort but is terrified of making it worse; hates himself a little because he already _did_ make it worse, and he can't bear this. He doesn't know how to be this helpless, this useless to fix anything.

"I'm sorry," he tells his teammate. "Sorry. Sorry. We won't try that again, okay? Clay?"

Spenser doesn't answer, or give any acknowledgement that he heard. His entire body is wracked with fine tremors. His eyes have slid closed, and he's as pale as the snow still slowly drifting in through the broken window. When Sonny very carefully brushes the inside of his wrist against Clay's forehead, he doesn't detect any fever at all anymore.

Outside the cabin, the world has gone gray with gloom and is growing steadily colder. The storm left a vicious chill in its wake, and the damaged cabin, while an adequate shelter against the snow, does almost nothing to shield them from the rapidly dropping temperatures. Eventually Sonny is forced to get up from Clay's side and pace just to get blood flowing, return some feeling to his legs, hopefully ward off hypothermia for a while.

There are no more vomiting episodes. There isn't much of anything, really.

Clay slides from stupor into unconsciousness without responding to Sonny or speaking another word. In the absence of fever, his skin grows increasingly cool to the touch. Sonny takes off his coat and drapes it over the kid, and eventually he starts periodically hovering a hand in front of Clay's mouth to make sure his brother is still breathing. Each time, his heart gallops with fear of what he might not feel, but each time there's a soft puff of warm air, then another and another.

As the light starts to fade out of the world, taking with it all color and Sonny's sense of hope, he starts to think again about trying to move Spenser.

Last time was awful. No matter how this turns out in the end, Sonny is pretty sure that scream of agony will be added to the list of things that haunt him. One more moment that will be permanently on rotation through his nightmares.

Now, though, Clay appears to be deeply unconscious, unresponsive even when jostled or yelled at. If there's a way to move him without making things worse, Sonny needs to find it, because Spenser should be in a hospital. Yesterday.

He needed to never come on this mission in the first place - which is something they'll have to give him hell about later (because there _will_ be a later; Sonny refuses to accept any other possibility) - but they can't undo what's already happened. All there is now is to move forward. That means getting Clay out of here and to someone who can help him.

Sonny is about to try lifting Spenser when he notices the bruising.

There are bands of blotchy, mottled purple encircling Clay's wrists where Sonny tried to lift him before. His grip was gentle, he's sure it was, but apparently that wasn't good enough.

Then he sees the dark pool starting to form on the snowy floor beneath Spenser's terrifyingly still face, and a deeper cold cuts straight through him.

There hasn't been any more heaving. For what feels like a long time, Clay has been utterly still except for the faint rise and fall of his chest beneath the drape of Sonny's coat. Whatever this is, it's something different. Something new.

Inside the cabin, the gloom has grown deep enough that Sonny has to click on a light to try to determine exactly what's going on.

There's a trickle of blood flowing from Clay's nose and the corner of his mouth, silent and steady and completely unstoppable.

Sonny turns the light back off. He feels sick to his soul.

His medical knowledge doesn't go much beyond the basics, but he knows enough to be aware that Clay's blood must have stopped clotting like it should. Right now, the single most pressing threat is probably a major hemorrhage, internal or otherwise, that would be utterly impossible to stop.

Sonny needs for there to be something he can do. Apply pressure. Put on a tourniquet. Dig out some hemostatic gauze.

But there isn't. There's _nothing._ Not a single action he knows to take to stop the bleeding - and if he tries to move Clay, he risks starting that hemorrhage that there wouldn't be any coming back from.

Hands tucked under his armpits, Sonny paces, his heart pounding like a jackhammer. He sucks in air so cold it hurts his teeth. He tries to figure out what the hell he's going to do.

If he tries to move Clay, to get him back to the trucks alone, he could end up killing him. Watching his best friend bleed out in the snow, and then living the rest of his life knowing that it was his fault. Sonny Quinn is well aware that he is a stubborn, resilient son of a bitch, but he really, honestly thinks that might break him.

And what if he stays here?

Their boys will come to them. Sonny knows that. He's certain of it to his half-frozen bones. The rest of Bravo will not leave them behind. They'll find them, and Trent will know what to do, and having the whole team present should help with safely transporting the kid if Trent judges that's what needs to happen.

With that, Sonny realizes he's already made his decision. Now all that's left to do is take care of their kid the best he can, and wait for their brothers to find them.

With Spenser's fever long since gone, hypothermia is a very real concern. As dark nears, the cold is only growing more biting, gnawing straight through Sonny's gear and settling into him from the inside. He can keep moving to ward it off, but Clay doesn't have that option.

There's a fireplace in the corner. It's in bad shape and there's a good chance the chimney is mostly blocked by now, but with the broken windows and open doorway, they aren't likely to suffocate even if it is.

Bottom line is, Clay needs warmth. Sonny cannot just let him freeze to death.

He drops to his knees beside his brother and very gently brushes his callused fingers over Clay's hair. Sonny wants to lift the kid up, pull him in for a bear hug, apologize again and offer comfort and share body heat, and it _hurts_ that he can't do that without making things worse.

"You listen to me, Clay," Sonny says. He means to make his voice stern, but it comes out hoarse and shaky, as near to crumbling as that damn fireplace. "You wait right here for me, you understand? I'm gonna come right back. I'll be right back, and the others, they're coming for us. Okay?"

Silence. The wind moans hollowly through the broken window. Clay takes a breath, and then another.

"Okay," Sonny says. He allows himself one gentle pat to Clay's shoulder. "Okay. Glad we got that cleared up."

Then he forces himself to haul his ass outside and collect some firewood, plus some dry conifer needles for tinder. With his coat back in the cabin with Clay, the wind cuts straight through him. By the time Sonny makes it back inside, he's shaking so hard that he struggles to find enough coordination to start the fire.

Eventually, he gets the tinder to light, then adds progressively bigger pieces of wood until the flames are crackling and starting to put off heat. Once the fire is established well enough to not need constant babying, Sonny turns his attention to propping the broken door so that it will block the worst of the wind.

Then he sits down next to Clay, holds his hands out toward the growing warmth from the fireplace, and waits.

Spenser's blood loss is more of a trickle than a gush, but it just never lets up. After a while, full dark sets in, closing over them like a trap. Anxiety sets Sonny's knee bouncing, because what if something happened? What if Bravo _can't_ come back for them, and they're stranded here alone, and he's already waited too long to have any chance of getting Clay out alive?

When Jason finally calls from outside, Sonny launches up like he's been shot out of a cannon.

After throwing the broken door aside and rushing out into the snow, Sonny takes just an instant to do a visual sweep of his teammates, confirming that they're all there and all still on their feet. That done, he latches onto Trent and drags him inside.

The next few minutes pass in a blur of activity. Sonny does his best to explain what happened. His heart drops as he watches Trent evaluate Spenser's condition while wearing an increasingly blank expression.

After spouting off some medical mumbo-jumbo, Sawyer confirms what Sonny had feared: that moving Spenser could kill him.

Then he admits that they have to try it anyway.

On Trent's direction, the team ends up converting a broken table into a makeshift stretcher, onto which they lift Spenser's horribly limp form, handling him like he's made of glass. They use strips of fabric to tie him in place, trying to walk the tightrope of securing him without putting too much pressure on skin that bleeds with almost every touch.

"If we drop him," Trent says with a terrible sort of calm, "he will probably die."

So they won't drop him. No matter what.

The hike back out to the trucks is one of the longest walks of Sonny's life. He can't seem to stop shivering, though he barely feels cold anymore at all; Trent says something about hypothermia and refuses to let him help carry Clay, so instead Sonny just walks alongside the stretcher, talking to his unconscious teammate in an increasingly slurred voice.

If he has to _annoy_ Clay into surviving, then by God that's exactly what he will do.

They make it, and Spenser is still alive.

After his patient has been loaded into a truck, Trent announces that they need to call HAVOC right now to arrange for a medevac to meet them at the nearest possible LZ. While Jason is on comms with Blackburn, giving a sitrep and requesting assistance, Brock and Ray start up the vehicles and drive them out.

Sonny ends up stationed next to Clay, buried under a pile of blankets and his teammates' coats, given strict instructions to stay put until he warms up.

As gently as possible, barely using any pressure at all, Sonny curls his fingers around Spenser's limp hand. Clay's skin is so cold he could almost be dead already, and fear settles like an elephant on Sonny's chest, but Trent keeps rechecking and then steadily repeating that Spenser still has a pulse, that he is breathing.

They drive through cold and dark and trees and flurries of snow, and then there's a helo and a lot of people talking over each other, and Clay's hand gets pulled away from Sonny's, and he is gone into the night sky.

Sonny huddles down in his pile of blankets, tucking his hands up against his body. He feels very alone. He isn't sure he'll ever be warm again.

Someone touches his shoulder, and Sonny looks up to see Ray's drawn, tired face, worried eyes. The sight of his teammate - Bravo Two, their heart, the glue that holds the team together - makes Sonny suddenly, keenly want to cry.

"Ray," he says, his voice cracking, "did we get him out in time? Did... uh, you reckon I waited too long?"

Instead of answering, Ray leans forward and pulls him into a tight hug, easing Sonny's head down into the crook of his neck.

Sonny curls numb fingers into his teammate's jacket, and he breathes and just lets himself hang on.


	4. Chapter 4

Trent gives Spenser blood and fluids to stabilize him as best he can, and then they improvise a stretcher and get moving.

The icy, moonlit trek from the cabin to the trucks feels like it takes a very long time. Ray keeps looking down at Clay's pale, bloody face and then up at Sonny, who is probably borderline hypothermic and who looks about as shaken and haunted as Ray has ever seen him in all their years of being teammates and friends.

Whatever happened during those hours in the cabin, it must have been pretty bad.

Ray knows, better than just about anyone else, the degree to which Sonny Quinn is capable of internalizing things, shouldering guilt, trying to wear blame that doesn't necessarily belong to him. Underneath that uncaring facade Sonny so often uses to protect himself lies one of the biggest hearts Ray has ever known. The Texan tries valiantly to fend off emotion, but when things do get to him, they tend to get to him _hard._

Clay Spenser, their annoying rookie, overflowing with cockiness and enthusiasm and courage and stubbornness and sincerity, somehow managed to barrel straight through all of Sonny's shields ages ago and is now firmly ensconced as probably the best friend Quinn has.

Losing him? Like this? Sonny wouldn't handle it well. At all.

Bottom line: Spenser is not the only teammate Ray is worried about right now.

Finally, finally they reach the trucks, and everyone piles inside, and they make contact with HAVOC and then drive out to meet the medevac.

When they reach the LZ, Spenser is still breathing. Barely.

The chilled quiet erupts into a dizzying flurry of motion and chatter once the medical team finally get their hands on Spenser. As Trent hands off his patient, he rapid-fire relates everything he knows about Clay's symptoms and the progression of his condition. There's a lot of back and forth about things like hypotension, and petechiae, and effusions and ascites.

A few chaotic minutes later, the helo is gone and the world drops very suddenly back into cold silence.

Sonny is still sitting where Trent put him, huddled beneath a pile of blankets and coats, staring blankly at the empty space where Clay just was; at the small puddle of blood that is now the only sign their kid was ever there.

"Hey, Son," Ray says softly. "You good?"

He doesn't get a reaction. No answer; not even a nod or a sigh. Sonny's thousand-yard stare doesn't change at all.

Ray's already strong sense of concern escalates sharply. He drops a hand on Sonny's shoulder, receiving a flinch in response, but at least Quinn finally looks up at him.

There's a world of grief and self-recrimination in Sonny's eyes, and his voice nearly crumbles when he asks if they waited too long to get Clay help. If _he_ waited too long.

There are a lot of possible ways Ray could answer that question. He knows better than to offer up any trite, empty platitudes; Sonny would see right through them anyway. Honestly, Ray isn't sure there's a single thing he could say right now that would help at all.

So he doesn't say anything. He just leans forward and pulls his brother into a tight hug.

Sonny Quinn is prickly as hell and not often open to displays of affection. You definitely have to pick your moments with him. Ray is one of the few people on earth who's close enough to the man to be pretty damn good at that by now.

The way Sonny leans into the hug and clings, wracked by tremors, tells Ray that he definitely made the right choice.

Sonny can't seem to stop shivering, and Ray is feeling pretty chilled himself. He ends up handing off driving duties to Jason so he can just huddle down next to Sonny, shoulder to shoulder, grateful that the cold offers a convenient pretext for the physical contact.

Sonny bonded with Ray way back when he was a rookie, when it was Ray's job to take the sometimes cantankerous Texan under his wing and help him settle in. Sonny's trust, once earned, isn't easily lost, and Ray is now on a short list of people Quinn would ever accept this kind of comfort from: basically his sisters, his team, Naima, and, Ray quietly suspects, probably also Lisa Davis.

At some point during the long drive, Sonny finally stops shivering and drifts off with his head pillowed on Ray's arm. Against the backdrop of Sonny's soft snoring, Ray closes his eyes and tries to sleep too. Tries to clear his mind of the image of Spenser's bone-white skin, bluish lips, bleeding face.

After the drive is finally over, there's a flight, debriefing, AARs, and then another longer flight back home. Information about Spenser trickles in, a little at a time: he's been diagnosed with a severe case of dengue hemorrhagic fever, which he must have picked up back in the jungle a week or so ago. Apparently, unknown to his team, he had a much milder case of dengue years ago, before reaching Tier One status, and prior infection is one of the biggest risk factors for developing hemorrhagic dengue.

While there's no true cure for the illness, they're treating him with oxygen therapy, intravenous fluids and platelets to try to prevent him from progressing to full-blown dengue shock syndrome, which can be life-threatening.

It takes about 48 hours for Clay to be deemed stable enough to get transported back home for further treatment. At that point, the entire team breathes what turns out to be a very premature sigh of relief.

After Spenser is settled in the ICU at the Naval Hospital, his teammates finally get to visit him, a couple at a time. Sonny has quietly remained in Ray's orbit ever since they got back, so they go in to see the kid together. He's got an IV and an oxygen mask and a catheter (apparently they're monitoring his urine output closely because a reduction could be an early indicator of DSS), and he's hooked up to a bunch of monitors, but his breathing is steady and his color looks a bit better.

When Sonny squeezes his hand and talks to him, Clay manages to get his eyes open, focus on his teammates, and offer them a faint smile. He's obviously groggy, still pretty miserable, and weak as a kitten, but just seeing him responsive helps ease the fear that's been gnawing at the back of Ray's mind ever since they walked into that cabin.

That doesn't last long.

Jason and Trent decide to take the first shift staying with Clay overnight, while the others go home to get some rest in preparation for their own upcoming all-nighters. Ray cuddles his babies and tells them bedtime stories, and then he falls asleep in the safe haven of his wife's embrace.

A few hours later, they're rudely awakened by Ray's ringing phone. Ray is groggy when he answers, but it doesn't take him long to become very, very alert.

Spenser has suffered a massive pulmonary hemorrhage.

He's in shock and his condition is rapidly deteriorating.

Jason and Trent have been sent back out to the waiting room. All they really know is that the medical team is working on him, and that last they heard he was not dead.

Jason doesn't add _yet,_ but Ray hears it anyway, hovering like a spectre at the end of the sentence.

After Jason ends the call, Ray ends up just sitting on the edge of the bed for a minute, staring at the wall across from him like it holds some kind of answer. Naima gently laces her arms around him from the back, resting her head on his shoulder. "Bad?" She asks softly.

Ray nods, fighting to get words out through the hard knot that's formed in his throat. "Uh, yeah. Guess he started bleeding again. Went into shock. They're working on him, but…"

Naima raises her face to kiss his cheek. "Go. I love you."

At this time of night, the streets are quiet, almost empty. Ray clamps his hands down on the steering wheel to stop them from shaking, and he tries to force his brain to focus on the here and now rather than concocting possible scenarios he could be faced with once he reaches the hospital. Turning the AC on full blast in his face, he uses the sharp chill to help ground himself.

Jason and Trent rise to meet him, pale and tired and drawn, quickly relating that they haven't heard anything new. Brock and Sonny arrive together just a few minutes later; Reynolds dropped by to pick up Sonny on his way in. None of them wanted him driving in his current state. They're all upset, stressed and scared and on edge, but Sonny seems to be having the hardest time coping.

In the harsh, sterile lighting and eerie quiet, they sit in uncomfortable chairs and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

When the doctor finally comes out to give an update, he takes one look at their faces and immediately leads with, "He's alive."

There's a collective exhale. Ray subtly puts his hand on Sonny's arm to help hold him up as he wobbles a bit with relief.

Probably wisely, the doctor gave the good news first. There's not a whole lot more of it to come.

They gave Clay a _lot_ of platelets, and they do seem to have his bleeding under control for the moment, but his overall condition is still incredibly fragile. Spenser's respiratory distress was significant; he required tracheal suction and ultimately had to be intubated and placed on a ventilator. In the aftermath of the shock and massive blood loss, Clay is experiencing cardiac dysfunction, which they're treating with inotropes.

As if that isn't enough, the doctor goes on to explain that they're walking a very fine line here. They have to continue giving Spenser enough fluids and platelets to prevent circulatory and/or organ failure, but give him too much and they risk causing fluid overload, which can result in pulmonary edema and even heart failure - and his heart is already struggling as a result of the hemorrhaging.

Basically, if Clay's medical team does a single thing wrong, miscalculates even just by a fraction, his condition will likely rapidly deteriorate, with potentially fatal consequences.

And if they do _everything_ right... well, there's a chance he still might die.

It takes a while before Clay's team is allowed back in to visit him, but none of them bother going back home. They can't bring themselves to leave. Not until they've at least gotten to lay eyes on him, to see for themselves that he is still breathing and his heart is still beating.

As long as he's alive, there is hope, and they will not give that it up unless or until they are forced to.

Ray calls Naima to update her on Spenser's condition. He waits some more. Finally, he's allowed to go in.

If Clay looked bad before, he's nearly unrecognizable now, with his eyes taped shut and the ventilator apparatus covering much of the bottom half of his face. He's absolutely, terrifyingly still, and looks much younger and more fragile than should be possible. It's hard to reconcile the man in the bed with the elite operator who doesn't know how to quit or when to stay down. Who has saved Ray's life more than once.

In a way, it would almost be easier if this had been caused by a bullet or a bomb. If there were some tangible target to direct the anger at; some way of finding justice, getting revenge.

There isn't. There's nothing: no mission, no battle to fight. Just a mosquito bite and a common tropical illness and some really shitty luck.

It's unfair as hell, but since when has life ever been fair? Especially to Clay Spenser?

Ray generally prides himself on being able to choose the right words. There's a reason why he so often ends up being the one who talks his teammates through their struggles; helps resolve team issues and conflicts; offers encouragement when it's most needed.

Right at this moment, though, he looks at his motionless, maybe dying teammate, and he finds himself at a loss for what he's supposed to say.

Finally Ray reaches out to grab Spenser's lax hand and asks him, in a voice that's only a little choked, "Clay, if you leave, who is gonna go around being absolutely convinced that he is better than me at everything?"

The only answer he receives is the continuous background noise of the machinery that's currently keeping his brother alive.

Ray swallows back the ache in his throat and continues, "What I'm saying is, this team has a cocky little shit quota, and we've gotten used to having you fill it. Finding the right smartass to take your place would be real damn hard, so don't force us to try, okay?"

Nothing.

Ray blinks away tears. He pats Spenser's unruly hair, and then he sits down in the chair next to the bed and hangs onto the kid's hand like he can somehow hold on tight enough to keep Clay's soul tethered to his body.


	5. Chapter 5

Sonny sleeps a little on the drive, and then a little more on the long flight back home, but those catnaps aren't enough to prevent him from being damn near delirious with exhaustion by the time they make it back to the States.

(To tell the truth, there might be a little bit more than just exhaustion going on, but he's never actually going to admit that out loud.)

It gnaws at him, what happened with Spenser, especially since it all still feels so unresolved. The kid was right there with them and then he wasn't, and now they're on a different continent and Sonny is supposed to just move on and not think too much about it and be content with the bare threads of information that get passed along through the grapevine.

They have at least been informed of what illness Clay has and that he's still alive, but Sonny doesn't think he'll be able to breathe right again until he actually gets to see his teammate for himself - preferably alive and awake and _not_ incoherent with agony.

Turns out it takes just a little over two days after Bravo's arrival back in Virginia for that to happen. Which honestly isn't as long as Sonny expected.

Spenser has received supportive care for the hell-dengue that did its absolute best to mimic Ebola or some shit, and he must be doing better if they've decided he's stable enough for transport. Sonny repeats that to himself a bunch of times over: _If Clay were in critical condition or actively dying, they wouldn't be putting him on a long international flight right now. He's okay. He's gonna be just fine._

After Spenser is home (more or less) and has been settled in the ICU, his team finally gets to go see him.

Brock picks up Sonny and brings him to the hospital, because the whole damn team has been acting incredibly, obnoxiously overprotective of him these past few days, like he's a kid who needs babysitting instead of a badass Tier One operator who has faced more than his fair share of trauma and is completely capable of dealing with the fallout.

Sonny has handled that with marginally more grace than usual, for a couple of reasons. One, because he actually maybe does need it just a tiny bit, and two, because he understands where it's coming from. Bravo's _actual_ 'kid' has been out of reach these past few days and there's been absolutely nothing they can do to help him, so they're channeling every bit of that tension and worry into taking care of Sonny instead.

So, in the interest of being gracious and understanding like his poor exasperated mama always tried to teach him, Sonny refrains from biting off Brock's head when Reynolds flatly refuses to let Sonny drive himself to the hospital.

Sonny and Ray go in together for the brief visit they're allowed. Clay is hooked up to some monitors and tubes, but he's less pale than before, and he even manages to get his eyes open and smile at them a little behind the oxygen mask. He's here and alive, and aware enough to recognize them, and doesn't appear to be in severe pain anymore.

The rush of relief sets Sonny's head spinning. He ends up sitting down for a minute once they get back out to the waiting room, just so he can breathe and let the wave of emotion wash over him and recede.

Turns out, he really should have been a little more guarded. Shouldn't have let himself feel so relieved, so soon. Not when Spenser's condition was still so fragile; when it was still possible for things to go horribly, catastrophically wrong.

Which, of course, they do.

In the middle of the night, Clay has a severe pulmonary hemorrhage. While the doctors do manage to get him through it alive, they refuse to make any promises or predictions afterward. Sonny doesn't understand a lot of the medical jargon, but he picks up the gist: Spenser's condition is extremely critical. His heart is struggling and he's at risk of organ failure. His medical team is walking a very fine line.

After the crisis, there are a couple of days where things are pretty much status quo. Spenser's platelet count remains a hell of a lot lower than it should be, but at least he doesn't have any more massive bleeding events. They keep him sedated and on the ventilator, as he's currently too weak to breathe for himself.

Sonny is torn. One part of him desperately wants to be nearby at all times, just in case something changes. Another part of him can barely stand to even glance at Clay, because between the utter stillness, paper-white skin and all the machinery, the kid almost looks dead already. Like they're just delaying the inevitable by fighting so hard to keep him here.

He tries to convince himself that at least Spenser isn't in any pain, but how can he actually _know_ that? It's not like the kid would be able to tell them about it if he was. What if he's just trapped inside his own failing body, hurting and unable to beg for help? That's one of the worst things Sonny can imagine. He thinks about it too much and ends up feeling like he's stuck back in that damn torpedo tube again and maybe gives himself a little bit of an anxiety attack, which is the first time that's happened in a while.

When it happens, Ray is the only other conscious person in the room; the two of them managed to wheedle their way into staying with Spenser overnight. After Sonny starts maybe sort of getting lost inside his own head and fighting with his own breathing and heart rate a little bit, Ray carefully doesn't look at him, but does casually scoot his chair a little bit closer.

Then Bravo Two starts humming, a soft, almost tuneless lullaby with just a hint of a repeating lilt to it.

Sonny furrows his eyebrows. Pulls himself together enough to ask, "Are you _singing?"_

Ray shrugs, looking unruffled and unapologetic. "Figure there's some chance he can hear us, and if he can, it might be nice for him to have something other than beeping to listen to." He goes back to humming.

Honestly, it is kinda nice. Sonny listens to the sound, and the gentle, repetitive rhythm of it grounds him, helping him regulate his breathing, calm his heart rate, anchor himself to the here and now.

By the time Sonny finally clues in that the humming was probably mostly never meant for Spenser at all, he feels so much better that he can't bring himself to be annoyed about it.

Clay survives the night, and the next day his platelet count starts rising. A couple days after that, his heart and kidneys have improved enough that the medical team starts talking about weaning him off some of the meds, maybe doing a trial run to see if he can breathe on his own.

There really isn't a single dramatic moment where it becomes clear that he's going to be okay. The decline was sudden, both when Clay first got sick and when the hemorrhage happened; by contrast, the recovery is more of a slow, steady upward slog, with just a few blips along the way. Once Spenser's internal organs have gotten their shit together, so to speak, and his platelet count is climbing toward normal and he's breathing independently again, they let him gradually surface from the sedation.

The first time the kid, eyes still closed, manages to squeeze Sonny's hand on cue, Sonny feels like an elephant has kicked him in the chest.

It's funny how, just in terms of pure physical sensation, hope and relief can feel so similar to fear.

Spenser gets moved out of the ICU. He gets some color back in his face. Eventually, he even manages to keep his eyes open for more than a couple minutes at a time.

It takes a bit longer for him to start verbally responding, which is a little nerve-wracking given that the doctors couldn't guarantee he didn't suffer some oxygen deprivation when things were touch and go during the hemorrhage. Eventually, though, Clay does start whispering single-word responses, then speaking short sentences in a voice that's raspy as hell but so unmistakably _him_ that it makes Sonny damn near cry a little.

Spenser is weak as a kitten and so perpetually exhausted that he keeps falling asleep in the middle of conversations, but he's clearly still in there, still himself. Everything else will come with time.

Once Clay is stable and coherent and his platelet and hematocrit levels have returned to something approaching normal, he gets released from the hospital. Of course every other member of Bravo immediately offers to let him stay with them, but Spenser makes it clear that what he really wants is to go home to his own apartment. That means having someone temporarily move in with him, since he's clearly not ready to be left alone yet.

Sonny announces that he's going to be the one who stays. None of the others even bother trying to argue, though he knows they'll want to see Clay and will probably be dropping by pretty regular.

It pretty quickly becomes clear why the doctors mandated that Spenser needed someone to stay with him if he was going to be sent home. The kid is so weak he can barely make it to the bathroom, and his arm shakes when he tries to open a pill bottle or lift a cup of water. The first time Clay attempts to shower by himself, Sonny ends up finding him sitting propped against the wall, sound asleep under the warm spray of water. He's a fall risk due to the weakness and dizziness, and falling just isn't a great idea when your blood still doesn't clot quite as well as it should.

Then there's the food thing.

Clay has lost some weight, and he needs to eat if he's going to regain it. Even more importantly, he needs to stay hydrated now that he no longer has an IV giving him fluids all the time.

Problem is, he doesn't _want_ to eat or drink - at least not as much as he needs to. The more Sonny hounds the kid about it, the more listlessly belligerent and annoyed he becomes. When Clay starts just defensively falling asleep every time Sonny tries to address the issue, and when the pinch test reveals that he's starting to become mildly dehydrated, Sonny finally gives up and calls in the big guns, AKA Trent and Jason.

Clay is sound asleep and snoring softly on the couch when they arrive. He looks so young and fragile that none of them can bring themselves to rouse his stubborn, stupid ass for the lecture that has to happen, so Jason and Trent end up just quietly settling in and waiting until he wakes up on his own.

Once that happens, once he starts to stir and stretch a little and try to gather the energy to roll over or sit up, Jason says pleasantly, "Hey, kid."

Clay goes still. He opens his eyes, looks at Jason and Trent, and then makes a face like he's been French-kissing a lemon.

"Do you want to go back into the hospital?" Trent asks him bluntly.

Clay gives a deep, put-upon sigh, stares up at the ceiling, and refuses to dignify that with a response.

Unfazed, Trent continues, "Because the reality is that you are gonna end up being readmitted if you keep this up. I know it sucks, but that's just how it is."

"I _know_ that," Clay petulantly tells the ceiling. His voice isn't quite back to normal, still just a hint raspier than before, but it's getting there.

"Well, then maybe you should act like you do." Jason's tone is mild, but that doesn't take the sting out of his words.

Sonny sees the moment when they hit home. Clay flinches a little, and then he admits in a near monotone, "I feel nauseated all the time. My stomach hurts like hell after I eat. And _everything_ tastes... like metal. Like blood. Especially water. Water is the worst." He makes a face.

"You could have just _told_ us that," Trent chides gently. "There are meds for the nausea. The taste issue should clear up once the plasma leakage does, and in the meantime maybe we can find some flavors that are tolerable. Eating smaller amounts more often might help with the pain."

Clay's face twitches minutely. He doesn't look convinced; mostly he just looks exhausted and run down and miserable. While Sonny is grateful to the depths of his soul that Spenser is stable and not dying, it's still hard as hell to see him like this.

Jason takes over, leaning forward a little and softening his voice. "Clay. You made it through BUD/S. You made it through SERE. You've been through hell and you've always come out the other side. If there's one thing you know how to do, it's fight. This is just one more thing you've got to fight through until it gets better, okay? Because it _will_ get better. I promise."

Clay sighs again, blinks a few times, and finally drops his gaze to their faces. He nods. "Yeah. Sorry. I just... I don't think I've ever been so tired in my whole damn life. Maybe not even after SERE."

After that, things do get better. Clay admits the nausea to his doctor and gets prescribed meds that seem to help some. They experiment with different flavors of Gatorade and smoothies and milkshakes, and while Spenser still makes faces like a toddler being forced to eat spinach, he does eventually find some he can tolerate.

He manages to stay hydrated, puts on a few pounds, starts staying awake all the way through showers. The last traces of his strange bruise-like rash finish fading away.

Sonny is a lot more cautious about it this time, but he does gradually start to relax, to let himself look ahead to when Clay will be fully recovered and can put this behind him and start joining them on missions again.

A week after being released from the hospital, Clay is feeling well enough to start getting annoyed by constantly having someone in his space, hounding him to drink Gatorade and eat and take his meds, checking to make sure he hasn't died in the bathroom. He starts hinting that he's ready to be left alone, but Sonny has yet to get his head completely out of that damn cabin, so he can't bring himself to turn loose just yet.

Turns out, that's a damn good thing.

When Sonny wakes up on the couch in the middle of the night, at first he isn't even sure what woke him.

Then he hears Clay call his name again. There's clear, raw panic in the kid's voice.

Sonny damn near breaks his neck trying to get untangled from the blankets so he can scramble into the bedroom.

Flipping on the light reveals Spenser flat on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, absolutely drenched in sweat. His right arm rests limply across his chest; his left hand has a white-knuckled grip on the blankets at his side.

"Talk to me." Sonny's voice comes out very calm. "What is it? What's hurtin' you?"

Clay sucks in a breath and croaks through gritted teeth, "Neck. Shoulder. Can't really move my arm."

What the _hell?_

He was getting better.

He's supposed to be _better,_ goddammit.

"Don't try to move," Sonny calls back over his shoulder as he hurries to retrieve his phone from the coffee table by the couch. "You're okay. You're gonna be just fine, you hear me?"

Clay doesn't answer.

Sonny's hands shake as he dials.

This isn't like the cabin. Help is just a phone call away. Everything will be fine.

If only he could make himself believe that.


	6. Chapter 6

By the next time Ray receives an unexpected phone call in the middle of the night, he has long since started believing the worst has passed when it comes to Spenser. Consequently, his first thought when he hears the buzzing isn't about Clay. He just assumes the healthy portion of the team is getting spun up.

Apparently, RJ crawled into bed with his parents at some point during the night and has somehow ended up passed out sideways at the head of the bed with one chubby leg flung over his father's neck. It takes Ray a minute to get himself untangled from the surprisingly heavy, snoring toddler and over to the bedside table to retrieve his phone.

Bleary-eyed, he blinks at the glowing screen and does a bit of a double take when he sees Trent's name. "Hello?"

Sawyer's voice is tight with tension. "_Sonny called. Something happened with Clay. I'm on my way to the hospital."_

Ray allows himself a couple seconds to take a breath, let it out. "How bad?"

"_Don't know yet. Sonny wasn't making a lot of sense."_

Poor Sonny. What went down in the cabin hit him pretty hard. He didn't need this - whatever _this_ is.

And dammit, Clay was good. He was doing so much better, well on his way to recovery. Ray saw him just yesterday morning.

Surely it can't be that bad, right?

God, please don't let it be bad.

Ray tells Trent he'll meet them at the hospital, and then he hangs up, rubs a hand over his beard, and pulls himself together in preparation for another miserable late-night drive. Before leaving, he kisses the foreheads of his sleeping wife and his sweet still-snoring son.

By the time he reaches the hospital, the others are already there, clustered in a nervous, tense little knot at the corner of the waiting room. Ray joins them and gets updated on what they know, which isn't much.

At some point during the night, Clay went from seemingly fine to experiencing excruciating neck and shoulder pain, and possibly partial paralysis. It's that second part that seems to be bothering Trent the most.

"He didn't want to move his arm because it hurt, or he _couldn't_ move his arm?" He asks Sonny.

The Texan shakes his head, clasps shaking hands together in his lap, and looks at the floor. "I don't know. I… I don't know." He sounds fragile, on the edge of crumbling. Brock scoots his chair closer and lays a steadying hand on his arm.

"What are you thinking?" Jason asks Trent quietly.

Sawyer shakes his head and leans back against the wall. "I didn't even get to see him. Probably shouldn't speculate."

Sonny looks up. Voice still a little unsteady, he says, "Let me rephrase that. What're you worryin' it might be?"

Trent hesitates. Finally, he sighs. "With the clotting issues… if there really is paralysis, then it's hard not to think about a cerebral hemorrhage. Spinal cord bleed. Something along those lines." He shakes his head again and adds, "Shouldn't be that, though. He was doing so much better. His platelet count was almost back to normal. Didn't even qualify as thrombocytopenia anymore."

Those words aren't as effectively reassuring as he probably means them to be. Ray spends the next few hours worrying about what the doctors are going to say when they finally, finally come out. He can tell the others are occupying themselves similarly.

After what feels like half the night, a doctor finally emerges, her face softening into a reassuring smile when they all jump to their feet. "His condition is stable," she tells them. "He's been given pain medication and is resting."

She relates that they've done a bunch of tests and scans, MRIs and CTs and, hell, probably a seance too, and they can't find any bleeding.

Actually, they can't find _anything_ so far that would clearly explain the pain.

Said pain is definitely real and was nearly unbearable without the pain meds, but once those kicked in, Clay apparently was able to move his arm, make a fist, squeeze a nurse's hand.

The relief that punches Ray in the chest is almost painful, and is followed up by mild annoyance, because really? The kid had to scare them half to death over this when it isn't even serious?

That annoyance drains away the second he sees Spenser's deceptively angelic sleeping face. There's no room left for anything but the relief.

They could probably all go home, but Ray is here now and wide awake, so he offers to stay with Clay until morning. They all know the kid hates being in the hospital, and if he wakes up disoriented, it'll be best for everyone involved if there is a familiar face present.

As it turns out, the meds and the aftermath of the severe pain have knocked Clay out hard, and he doesn't wake up until mid-morning. Ray leaves the room a while after dawn to call Naima and explain what happened. On his way back in, he quite literally bumps into Stella, who immediately backs away, mumbling a sheepish-sounding apology.

Ray didn't expect to see her here. She must still be on Clay's paperwork even though apparently, a few days before the ill-fated Mongolia mission, she and Clay mutually decided (again) that their relationship wasn't going to work out.

To be fair, they do both seem to be handling it more calmly and maturely this time around than last, but Ray can't help but wish that Stella would either permanently stay or completely go. This hanging around at the fringes of Clay's life, trying to be his friend even though they're extremely not over each other, is certainly not making it easier for either of them to do anything resembling moving on.

It's not really Ray's business, though, so he just nods politely at Stella and continues on to Spenser's room, where he finds the kid still sound asleep next to his ex's gifts: a vase of sunflowers and a small stack of well-loved books.

Clay wakes up once the pain meds start to wear off a little. If Ray had had any annoyance left, it would be long gone by now, because it's crystal clear just how much agony the kid is in. He doesn't stop shaking until the next dose of Vicodin has fully taken hold.

The opioid-controlled pain lasts through that day and most of the next, and then it eases up almost as suddenly as it arrived.

The problem is what it leaves behind.

Even without the meds, Clay's arm doesn't hurt much anymore - but now he really can't move it, at least not much, and has no strength in it at all. He can curl his fingers weakly inward but not make a fist. Can't lift his right arm more than a couple inches off the bed.

He's trying to hide just how scared he is, but not doing a very convincing job of it.

The diagnosis, when it finally comes, isn't something Ray expected, due to the fact that it's not something he even knew existed.

Brachial neuritis. A rare form of peripheral neuropathy. Basically, it's spontaneous nerve damage. The exact cause is unknown, but it sometimes occurs in the aftermath of a virus, so some sort of immune malfunction might be involved.

Of course the dengue found a way to leave the poor kid a final parting gift.

Anyway, the bottom line is that Spenser's brachial plexus is a little bit fried right now. Which isn't great, since he kind of needs it for his career as a Tier One operator.

Clay goes pale when he hears _nerve damage,_ and even paler when it's followed up with _atrophy._ "Do people recover from this?" He asks tightly, his good hand clenched in the blanket at his side.

The doctor gives him another of those sweet, reassuring smiles she's so good at. "Definitely. You're in for a lot of physical therapy, which we can get you started on right away if the pain has let up enough, but most people make a full recovery, with time."

Spenser relaxes fractionally and lets out a breath, then asks, "How much time?"

She hesitates. Clay's tension immediately returns.

"It's hard to predict," the doctor says finally. "Cases vary a lot. Recovery could take anywhere from a few months to up to three years."

Spenser looks like he wants to throw up. Ray can sure as hell understand why.

Three _years?_

Bravo would have to replace him. After all the hell he went through after that bomb in Manila, after how hard he fought to make it back, after they waited for him… if his rehab period stretches into years, they won't have any choice this time.

"You've got a lot going for you," the doctor hurriedly adds, her eyes flicking from Spenser's face to Ray's and back. "You're young and strong, and I know you'll work hard at therapy. We'll also start you on a two-week course of prednisone to hopefully speed things up."

Clay nods and thanks her, and then he goes very quiet, staring down at his newly useless arm.

The rest of the team arrives and gets updated, and then there's a round of vocal optimism and reassurance, which Clay determinedly mopes through. After patting Spenser's good arm and assuring him that he's gonna be just fine and will be back to work in no time, Sonny tries to lighten the mood. "Brachial neuritis? Ain't that a spell from Harry Potter?"

Clay blinks up at him, looking surprised. "You read Harry Potter?"

Taking the toothpick out of his mouth, Sonny drawls, "There were books?"

Spenser's expression is almost comically offended. "Yeah, and they were way better. The movies ruined Ron. And Ginny." After a slight delay, his brain seems to catch up with his mouth, and he looks like he wishes he could take the words back.

Of course they all know Clay is a bookworm, but he generally makes a valiant attempt to pretend he isn't a complete nerd. At least when Sonny is present.

"You," Sonny tells him gleefully, "are a _nerd."_

"Shut up," Clay mutters, but there's a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Now that the doctors feel confident that there's nothing life-threateningly wrong with him, Spenser gets discharged and goes home with a couple bottles of pills and a sheaf of papers outlining his physical therapy plan, starting with passive range of motion exercises and moving to active ones if the pain holds off.

Nobody on Bravo is quite certain whether it does or not, but pain or no pain, Clay throws himself into getting the use of his arm and shoulder back with at least as much ferocious focus as he poured into rehabbing his leg after Manila.

You'd think having to go through a second round of intense, grueling physical therapy so soon would be mentally and emotionally exhausting, but having defied the odds once seems to have convinced Clay that he can do it again, and now he just has to prove that he can.

He does. Honestly, they shouldn't even be surprised at this point. The kid has more lives than a cat.

For all that he's been through much more than his fair share of hell, Spenser must still have somebody looking out for him, because it's only a combination of hard work, sheer stubbornness and really good luck that has him walking back onto the base less than four months later, cleared and ready to join Bravo for their next mission.

They've all been seeing him practically every day that they weren't spun up, but the return is still an occasion to celebrate. There's a lot of hugs and back slaps and overenthusiastic whoops. Sonny squeezes Clay until he groans in protest, ruffles the hell out of his hair, and cheerfully calls him a nerd again. Even Jason gives out a hug, and Bravo One tends to ration those.

Once everything has died down, they present Spenser with his welcome back gift: an opaque bag with a drawstring at the top. He opens it and pulls out a can of mosquito repellent. And then another. And another. Altogether, there are probably close to 20 different types in there.

Weapons-grade mosquito repellent; scented mosquito repellent; all-natural mosquito repellent; mosquito repellent for sensitive skin; mosquito repellent for kids. They really went all out.

Spenser laughs, endures a couple minutes of raucous teasing, and then looks up and says, "Hey, thanks, y'all. Appreciate it."

It's clearly meant to be flippant, but his eyes are glistening a little and he can't seem to stop smiling.

"Gotta keep you healthy, kid," Jason tells him, with about as much open fondness as he ever allows into his voice. "It's good to have you back." Clay smiles at him, and he smiles back, and then the moment passes and Hayes declares, "Let's get to work."

And they do.

* * *

Y'all are great! Thanks for everything. ❤️


End file.
